The federal government is throwing the Canadian auto industry under the bus, the head of the country’s largest private sector union warned Tuesday after a White House meeting between Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I am the most worried I’ve been since this started,” said Unifor national president Lana Payne in an interview hours after the meeting wrapped up, and after Carney’s minister for U.S. trade Dominic Leblanc said in a press conference that the two countries were working towards a trade agreement on three “priority” sectors: Steel, aluminum and energy.
The automotive and softwood lumber industries, which have also been hammered by sector-specific tariffs, weren’t on the list, Payne noted.
“The auto and the forestry sectors, where were they today?” asked Payne. “What I’m hearing right now is that there is a willingness to sacrifice the auto industry because it isn’t part of the broader discussion at the moment. That is the message we’re getting. … What are we saying about the hundreds of thousands of workers who build things in this country?”
While Leblanc said in his press conference that the government would return to other issues after dealing with the three “priority” items, that’s a grievous tactical error, Payne warned.
“It sounds like we are willing to piecemeal these negotiations; have discussions based on one sector, then another sector, and then using leverage to get those deals. Well, how much leverage are we going to have left by the time we get to talk about the auto industry?” Payne said.
Trump’s goal, said Payne, is crystal clear: Luring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., and securing access to Canadian resources that he needs to do it.
“Whether it’s steel, aluminum or energy, they need those things in order for their own economy to run,” said Payne. “We all understood this, we all understood that the resources we have in Canada, the critical minerals that we have here, that these were leveraged for us in any negotiations with the U.S.”
The head of the Big Three Detroit automakers association in Canada said that Trump’s approach has led to higher prices for consumers and giving up global market share to China.
“We’ve spent the better part of the last 60 years building a highly integrated North American automotive industry, which has made the sector highly competitive,” said Brian Kingston, CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association. “You cannot unwind that overnight without doing massive economic damage to the United States, Canada, and Mexico.”
Trump’s tariffs on automotive imports, including from Canada and Mexico, raise costs for the entire North American automotive industry when it’s in a desperate struggle to compete against Chinese manufacturers, especially in the electric vehicle market, said Kingston.
“If the United States is fighting with its strongest partner and ally in Canada,” says Kingston, “we do not stand a chance against China in this pivot to electrification. We’d better start working together, or we will be blocked out of markets around the world.”
The head of the association representing international auto makers in Canada (including Honda and Toyota, which both have plants in Ontario), also blasted Trump’s tariff strategy.
“It does not make sense why the President would be looking at Canada as a competitor as opposed to a collaborator. We have literally been building vehicles together — not just for one another’s market — for 60 years. American companies, as well as American consumers, benefit from the automotive industry in Canada,” said David Adams, CEO of Global Automakers of Canada.
Adams also shot down Trump’s assertion that Detroit “emptied out,” because of Canada.
“Detroit didn’t empty out because of Canada, but rather because of ‘right to work’ states in the U.S. southeast that lured plants there with the prospects of easier labour relations,” Adams said.
Canada’s auto parts manufacturing association head agreed that the auto industry will suffer if Trump keeps trying to undo the continent-wide automotive alliance.
“It can’t function if we disintegrate it,” said Flavio Volpe, CEO of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association. “He’ll sink Detroit before he sinks Shanghai.”
Manufacturers like Ford, GM and Stellantis count on the highly-integrated North American automotive supply chain, Volpe said, with raw materials and parts often crossing the Canada-U.S. and U.S.-Mexico borders up to seven times en route to becoming a finished vehicle.
“You’re taking aim at Canada, but you’d be naïve to think that Ford, GM or Stellantis aren’t getting hurt as well,” said Volpe, who also took issue with Trump’s claim that Detroit “emptied out” because of Canada. “Everyone knows those statements have no relationship with the truth.”
“The problem we have is that they want a car company, and I want a car company,” Trump said during the White House press conference with Carney. “We don’t like to compete because we sort of hurt each other when we compete, and so we have a natural conflict. It’s a natural business conflict.”
Still, Volpe felt that some of Trump’s rhetoric was the U.S. president’s way of signalling that real negotiations can start.
“I’m not as worried as some other people who heard about Canadian cars and think it’s the end of the world. I think it’s the beginning of negotiations,” said Volpe. “This way, he can talk about a deal being done with a formidable opponent.”
And, Volpe said, he wasn’t particularly concerned that the automotive sector was left off of the list of three “priority” sectors Carney and Trump instructed their negotiating teams to quickly reach a deal on. In a not-so-veiled shot at the soybean industry, which has repeatedly said its members are being used as bargaining chips to help save manufacturing jobs, Volpe said the automotive industry wants to be part of a broader deal.
“We had a chance to ask for a carveout earlier this year, and we emphatically said we’re going to work together as Team Canada and make sure that we don’t use up a carveout that could be used for somebody else,” said Volpe. “I don’t want special treatment, we’ll do our own work. But we shouldn’t be left behind.”
Trump also claimed that he wants Canada’s auto sector to do well.
“We want to make our cars here. At the same time, we want Canada to do well, making cars,” Trump said. “So, we’re working on formulas and I think we’ll get there.”
